A Twist on the Classic
by ThePotterGeek
Summary: Let's say the Titanic sank in 1987, and it's 10 yrs later. Rose is 27, and she's telling her story, with an unexpected ending. Twoshot. Complete.
1. Beginning

**This is a new fic I thought of. You'll have to see what happens, cuz I ain't giving anything away. This will be relatively short. Let's say the _Titanic_ sank closer to the time they found the safe. It's ten years after the sinking, 1997. I _think_ that's when the movie came out. Whatever. Rose is 27. She was 17 during the movie. Ok, you all are like "Get _on_ with it, woman!" and I will. Right now, in fact.**

**I own nothing. Just the plot. Actually, not even, because this is basically the movie with a few tweaks.**

**This won't really be longer than, like, 5 chapters. That's if you're lucky. I also used the real script, so I cut stuff that's unnecessary. Like the stuff Lizzy says, that kind of thing. And I'm not going throught the whole movie. If you really want to, you can watch the movie just to update yourself on what happens. You will see the basic significance of moving it forward in time in the second chapter, I hope. And the story might not be as good because I know it's much more powerful when Rose is old. I also used the original script, so it might not be exactly like it is in the movie. I'll do my best, though. But there are several lines I like from the script that weren't in the movie, so I used those. Anywho, moving along...**

Rose Dawson was sitting in her kitchen in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, eating breakfast. She had a small T.V. in there, and she had the news on. They were reporting on the failure of some mission or another.

"Mr. Lovett found a folder in the safe that held drawings," the reporter was saying, "All were ruined when the Titanic sank but one. Here it is."

The screen showed a picture of a drawing in pencil. It was of a girl lying on something, completely naked. Rose drew in a breath.

"This picture was drawn ten years ago yesterday, the day before the sinking of Titanic," the reporter continued, "The initials in the corner are J.D., and researchers are looking through passenger lists to find a record of him or her."

Rose was really listening now. She knew what those initials stood for. She also knew who the woman in the picture was. The reporter hadn't said what Mr. Lovett had been looking for, but Rose knew what it was as well.

Rose picked up her telephone and got hold of an operator. "Can you give me a Mr. Brock Lovett? I need to reach him."

"He is not at home, weren't you watching the news?" the woman said, sounding a bit irritated.

"I have been. Is there any way to reach him?"

There was silence for a few seconds. "Yes," the operator answered. "I'll hook you up."

Within seconds Rose heard the unmistakable sound that told her she was getting what she wanted. She had been waiting, listening to the ringing, about to hang up, when a man picked up.

"Hello? This is Bobby Buell, Brock Lovett's assistant. Can I help you?"

"Yes, this is Rose Dawson, and I would like to speak to Mr. Lovett," replied Rose calmly, "It's about the search for the diamond."

"Hold please."

She held, waiting for the man to pick up. He finally did. "This is Brock Lovett. How can I help you Mrs...?" There was a pause. "Ms. Dawson?"

"I was just wondering if you had found the Heart of the Ocean yet, Mr. Lovett."

There was stunned silence at the other end. She heard his assistant say quietly, "I told you you wanted to take this call."

"All right. You have my attention, Rose. Can you tell me who the woman in the picture is?"

"Oh yes. The woman in the picture is me."

Rose found herself, a few hours later, in a helicopter being taken to the boat where Brock Lovett was currently residing. The boat came into sight. It was a nice ship, but it was obviously for research, not comfort.

The helicopter touched down and she was helped off the aircraft. Lovett was staring at her. She hadn't changed very much since she was seventeen, so she still looked very much like the drawing.

She was led to a room where she unpacked. If she were to tell the whole story, she was going to be here for awhile. She was finishing putting photos on the bedside table when Brock Lovett knocked and came in.

"Is your stateroom all right?" he asked, slightly jokingly. He might even have even been making fun of her for saying she had sailed on the _Titanic_.

"Yes, very nice," she replied, not taking offence to the joke if it was meant that way.

Brock was looking at her pictures. "I have to have my pictures with me when I travel."

"Would you like anything?" Brock inquired.

"Yes. I would like to see my drawing."

She was led to some kind of laboratory. Mr. Lovett motioned to a dish filled with water. She walked over to it and looked inside. There it was, completely cleaned off. She had to bite her lip to keep tears from coming. In spite of all this, she began to smile, lost in memory. Brock Lovett was explaining the history of the diamond.

"Louis the Sixteenth wore a fabulous stone, called the Blue Diamond of the Crown, which disappeared around 1792, about the time when Louis lost everything from the neck up. The theory goes that the Crown Diamond was chopped too, recut into a heart-like shape and it became Le Coeur de la Mer, the Heart of the Ocean. Today it would be worth more than the Hope Diamond."

"It was a dreadful, heavy thing," she retorted. He was in it for the glory, wanting only the thing. "I only wore it this once."

"I tracked it down through insurance records, an old claim that was settled under terms of absolute secrecy. Do you know who the claimant was, Rose?"

"Someone named Hockley, I should imagine." She said the name as though it were poison. Brock had absolutely no idea why. But she did get the answer right. She either had access to a lot of information, or she really was who she said she was.

"Nathan Hockley, right. Pittsburgh steel tycoon. For a diamond necklace his son Caladan Hockley bought in France for his fiancé- you- a week before he sailed on the _Titanic_. And the claim was filed right after the sinking. So the diamond had to've gone down with the ship.And the date on here says April 14, 1987. If you're who you say you are, then you were wearing the diamond the day the _Titanic_ sank. And that makes you my new best friend. I will happily compensate for anything you can tell us that will lead to its recovery."

She had a strange look on her face. She had grimaced when the words 'Caladan Hockley' had come out of his mouth. She also looked a bit sad. "I don't want your money, Mr. Lovett. I know how hard it is for people who care greatly about money to give some away."

Lovett looked a bit doubtful. "You don't want anything?" he asked, not believing anyone would turn down money.

She nodded her head to the picture. "You may give me this, if I anything I tell you is of value."

He didn't even consider for a moment. "Deal."

"These are some things we recovered from your stateroom," Brock said, referring to a collection of objects on a table across the room.

Rose walked over, curious. She picked up a cracked mirror. "This was mine," she said breathlessly, "How extraordinary! It looks the same as when I last saw it."

She turns it over and looks sadly into her own blue-green eyes. "Reflection hasn't changed very much, but I have."

She picked up a butterfly comb. The creature looks as though it's ready to take flight. She turned it over, lost in that time. A tear slipped out of her eye, unnoticed by anyone.

Then Brock said, "Are you ready to go back to _Titanic_?"

Rose steeled herself, then nodded. She was led to yet another room where Brock's partner, Louis Bodine. There was a digital model of Titanic on the screen.

"She hits the berg on the starboard side, and sort of bumps along, punching holes like Morse code, _dit dit dit_, down the side. Now she's flooding in the forward compartments, the water spills over the top of the bulkheads, going aft. As her bow is going down, her stern is being lifted up, slowly at first then faster until her whole ass is sticking up in the air! Now that's a big ass, we're talking 20, 30 thousand tons. The hull can't deal, so SKRTT! She splits, right down the keel, who acts like a big hinge. Now the bow swings down and the stern falls back level- but the weight of the bow pulls the stern up vertical, and then the bow section detaches, heading for the bottom. The stern bobs like a cork, floods and goes under about 2:20 a.m., two hours and forty minutes after the collision."

Rose had listened to all that without showing emotion on her face. She thought it was over, but there was more.

"The bow pulls out of its dive and planes away, almost a half a mile, before it hits the bottom going maybe 12 miles an hour. KABOOM! The stern implodes as it sinks, from the pressure, and rips apart from the force of the current as it falls, landing like a big pile of junk. Cool huh?" he finished.

Rose felt a bit overwhelmed. To see it played out like that, with no people, no feeling for the people who were on that ship, falling, sliding and jumping off. She didn't say any of this, just, "Thank you for that fine forensic analysis, Mr. Bodine. Of course the experience of it was somewhat less clinical." Her story would tell them how it really was.

Mr. Lovett looked interested, but Rose could see past that. He just wanted the diamond. "Will you share it with us?" he asked.

Rose turned to the monitors. With each one, she saw a bit of her past. It all became too much. She began to sob.

One of the scientists, a woman, said, "She had a long journey, she should rest and tell you tomorrow-" She tried to take Rose back out of the room, but Rose shrugged her off with surprising force. Her sea-colored eyes had a look of steel purpose. "_No_."

"Tell us, Rose." Her back was to him still, and she didn't see him turn on a recorder. Not that it would matter very much if she did see.

As Rose was looking at the monitors, outside the room a man was talking to a crewmember. "I just want to hear her story, don't tell anyone I'm here, please."

The crewman nodded, with a look of confusion on his face. The man stood by the doorway, waiting for the beginning of the story.

Rose finally turned to her audience. "It's been ten years..."

"Just try to remember all you can, anything-"

"Do you want to hear this story or not, Mr. Lovett?" Rose asked, voice sickly sweet. Brock shut up.

"It's been ten years, and I can still smell the fresh paint. The china that had never been used. The sheets that had never been slept in. _Titanic_ was called the ship of dreams. And it was. It really was..."

**I'm NOT writing out all of Titanic. The next chapter will be her ending the story, and the main plot of this story. It gets more interesting. Believe me. I'll update like, now, because I have absolutely nothing to do but write. Or watch something, or read something, but I fell like writing right now. Bye for now!**


	2. Reunion

**Ok, second chapter of ****A Twist on the Classic****. I really like that name. I thought it up on the spot of creating the story. The document in Word was called 'warped titanic' and I wanted it to be something like that. I'm just going to roll the story instead of blabbing. Once again, I will say that I'm not re-writing ****Titanic****. Just trying to get it through to you thick skulled out there.**

**Disclaimer: Wish I did, but I didn't. It's James Cameron's people, it's ALL OVER the movie. It's like 'Director: James Cameron'. 'Producer: James Cameron'. 'A **JAMES CAMERON** film'. And all that jazz. I'm not kidding at all.**

Everyone listened intently. Rose could see them being drawn in at first, but after a while she wasn't seeing the preset anymore, just the past as she told it. She finished several hours later. It felt as if everyone was in a daze. A few people had tears streaming down their cheeks. Brock Lovett and Lewis Bodine were not crying, but they looked shell-shocked by the story.

"We never found anything on Jack Dawson. There was no record of him at all," Bodine said.

Rose smiled a bit. "Well there wouldn't be, would there? And I've never spoken of him until now, not to anyone." She paused, still wrapped in memory, almost in a dreamlike state. "Well now you know there was a man named Jack Dawson, and he saved me. In every way that a person can be saved." She stopped, looking a bit heartbroken. "I don't even have a picture of him. He exists now... only in my memory."

Rose then was lost in images, and very few of the people in the room heard the door open and a voice say, "I beg to differ."

Rose jolted, like she had been electrically shocked, and looked up. A man of twenty-eight was standing in the doorway, with tan skin and bright blue eyes. His hair was dirty blonde. He was grinning at Rose.

Time seemed to freeze. Brock was looking from one to the other, putting it together. This man looked like what Rose had described. Energetic, full of life, and completely boundless. Never mind that he had thought the love-struck girl had been talking when he heard it. The whole rest of the team was slowly putting it together. They had no idea how, but they understood the simple facts. The woman who had tried to get Rose to go back to her room was the first to exit.

Rose was just staring at him. She was completely unaware of the room emptying around her; all she could see was him. "Jack?" she whispered, "Jack Dawson?"

He nodded, grin widening, and Rose rushed into his arms. He kissed her fiercely. The room was empty now. Rose had tears streaming down her face. When they broke apart, he brushed them away and said, "Why are you crying?"

"I thought you were dead for ten years!" she cried (in both senses of the word) and kissed him again.

"I thought you were dead too," he said when she released him, "and it killed me."

"I'm sorry Jack," she said.

He looked at her in complete confusion. "Why?"

"I didn't keep my promise. I couldn't go on."

He kissed her head and hugged her hard.

"How are you still alive? The last time I saw you you were frozen and you were sinking..."

Jack looked at her. "Please don't be sad now. And they," he nodded his head toward the door, meaning the team, "would probably like to hear my story too."

Rose nodded, and they went to go get everybody back into the room. Once they were assembled, Jack, holding tight to Rose's hand, began talking.

"I wasn't really dead when Rose let go of me," he started, wiping away a tear of Rose's that had slipped out at that simple sentence, "I was just unable to move. So for all intents and purposes, I was frozen. I kept on thinking how badly I wanted to stay alive, and how much I wanted to kick upwards. After about a minute of trying to get movement back into my legs, I was able to kick fully. By the time I got to the surface, Rose was gone. I couldn't see very well, couldn't cry out. There were two possibilities: You were dead or you were alive and in a boat, Rose. I saw lights kind of floating in the distance, and I figured that they belonged to lifeboats. I started swimming, really slowly, towards them, after a while I was really able to function properly. I was still freezing, but I was, quite literally, _fighting_ hypothermia."

He stopped for a minute, lost in thought, gripping Rose's hand as if she were the only thin that were keeping him alive. He wanted to make sure this wasn't a dream, and that he would wake up to find that she was actually dead.

"I got to the boat. Actually, it was two boats. They were tied together. Molly Brown was in the one that pulled me in and so was your mother."

Rose nodded. "I never saw them again," she said, a hint of melancholy in her voice. "No one who would have told me that you were alive."

Jack nodded, and continued. "Yeah. That's right. I remember getting a few coverings or something, and I ended up falling asleep. I woke up in a hospital on land. The doctors there told me I had slept through the rest of the trip to America on the _Carpathia_. After about, I'd say a month, I was fine. I was freezing for the first week, and I'm pretty sure I got pneumonia." Rose took in a sharp breath. "But I was fine," he reassured her, "I'm a survivor, remember?"

A fresh wave of tears streamed down her face, and she leaned against him. He put his arm around her, holding her close. "I got through it, and I went to Chippewa Falls, where I guess you went." He was again talking to Rose, who nodded. "I wanted to be, in any way I could, closer to you," she said. He nodded. "I grew up in Chippewa Falls, then after my parents died, I got up and left. I hadn't been back there since. I lived there for ten years. Then, this morning, on the news, I saw a picture that I had drawn. By the time I called in, I think Rose was already here, because one of your crewmen said that you couldn't come to the phone. I asked him if I could come to the boat you were on, and he said sure. So one of my friends has a flying license and a helicopter, so I asked her to bring me here. The man who had answered the phone came to greet me. I told him I was a _Titanic_ survivor and I had drawn that picture. He asked me who the woman was, and I said that it was Rose DeWitt Bukator asked me to draw that picture of her wearing the Heart of the Ocean. He seemed to believe me after that. He said there was one glitch. 'The woman who we thought had died on the _Titanic_ was named Rose DeWitt Bukator,' he told me, 'But the Rose here is saying that he last name is Dawson. I hadn't really told him what my name was; can't remember how that worked, though. I told him it was the same girl. He led to where she was going to tell the story to you, and I told him not to tell anyone I was here, I just wanted to listen to Rose. And, well, you all know the rest."

He took a long breath, like he had been waiting to tell that for years, just like Rose had. "I never actually told that to anyone, even the friends I've made in the last ten years. Some of the closer ones know I'm a _Titanic_ survivor, but they never asked me for the story. I've been waiting a decade to get that off my chest."

Rose completely understood. None of the people she had become close with knew anything about her time on Titanic; after they had learned she was a survivor, they were a little afraid to press the subject. But Rose thought of it as poison that had to be sucked out. Telling the story did that, and erased the wound. Jack's being alive was just the icing on the cake. It was amazing. And neither of them had moved on.

That night, Rose got up out of the bed she had on the boat. She walked towards the back of the ship. There was a railing there. She stepped on the first rail. She then felt hands on her waist, steadying her. Jack wasn't asleep either. She opened her hand and showed him the Heart of the Ocean. He stared at it. He hadn't seen it since that fateful night. Rose told him about finding in her pocket.

"The worst part of being so poor was being so rich," she told him, "but every time I tried to sell it, I thought of Cal, and I got along without him throughout all those years. Now I want to return it to where it belongs."

He nodded. He understood. She could get by without Cal. He knew what she was going to do. The team wouldn't understand, they would mainly see it as the loss of a material. She was holding it over the edge when Brock Lovett ran up behind them.

"Don't come a step closer," she said, using a similar tone to the one she used when she was trying to commit suicide, except this wasn't as desperate, "or I'll drop it."

His eyes traveled from Rose to the diamond, then he said, "_You had it the entire time?!?_"

Rose nodded. "I couldn't sell it," she said.

"Yes, I heard you telling him," he said, gesturing to Jack, who was not holding on to Rose. This was her moment, and he sensed it.

Louis Bodine came, along with Bobby. The "Holy shit," uttered by Bodine basically summed up what the three team members were feeling.

"Don't drop it, Rose," Brock said. He was trying to coax her to bring it over. He mind flashed in memory. She was hanging off the back of the Titanic, and Jack was using the same tone to try to get her not to let go. Except now it was being used for a material, not a human being's life.

Bodine was willing to do anything to get that diamond. "Rush her," he whispered fiercely. Jack stepped protectively closer to Rose, giving Bodine a look that would set ice on fire.

Brock seemed to understand Rose's point a bit. "It's her, you schmuck," he whispered back to Louis. He turned to Rose. "Look, Rose, I... I don't know what to say to a woman who tries to jump off the _Titanic_ when it's not sinking, and jumps back onto it when it is... we're not dealing with logic here, I know that... but please... think about this a second."

Rose simply smiled. "Oh, I've had my mind made up for years.I came all the way here so this could go back where it belongs."

Brock seemed to resign to the fact that she was going to toss it over. But he edged a little closer. "Just let me hold it in my hand. Please. Just once."

Rose, to everyone's surprise, holds it out. Brock takes the diamond in his hand, but Rose was still holding the chain. Brock was completely lost in the jewel. His hand closed around it. "My God," he whispered.

He looked up, right at Rose. "You look for treasures in the wrong place, Mr. Lovett," she said, "Only life is priceless, and making each day count." Rose met Jack's gaze. He smiled.

His fingers loosened on the diamond. Rose pulled it away from him, and threw it over.

Brock was a bit shocked that he had it, and to have it go. He rushed to the rail in time to see it sink into the inky blackness of the water.

Bodine was horrified. "Aw, that really sucks, lady!" he yelled at Rose.

Brock seemed to be going through a thousand different emotions, and finally settled; he began to laugh. He laughed hard, holding his hands up. Rose knew that he finally understood, even if no one else from the team did.

The next morning Jack and Rose were transported back to Chippewa Falls by way of helicopter. Rose was leaning against Jack the whole time. They were holding on to each other's hand for dear life. When they landed, Jack kissed her hair and said, "Welcome home, Rose."

**This is the end. The whole thing with Brock coming to her is the original ending to the movie. And Brock laughs and asks Lizzy to dance. I like that ending, and I decided to stick it in here. Well I really liked this story. I hope you did too. I forgot to ask for reviews in the last chapter. So, review! And no flames. Thanks to reviewers!**

**-Arnold-**


End file.
